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Raj Kumar Sah completed his Bachelors’ degree in agriculture a year ago. But he is still unemployed. The resident of Jahda Rural Municipality-3 has been sending applications to various employers, but none has been accepted. Every time he receives an offer, it is turned down for one reason: he doesn’t have a citizenship certificate.

 “There’s no option for me other than to stay home and imagine what it would be like to land a job opening advertised in the newspaper,” says Sah, one of the many people across Nepal who are victims of the state’s policy to ask for citizenship certificate from its own people when they want to work in the formal sector.

 “I chose to study agriculture as I thought the sector is full of opportunities,” says Sah. “If I knew that I wouldn’t get citizenship, I would have abandoned formal studies and learnt some other skills to help me earn a living,” he adds.

Amar Verma of Dharan Municipality-9, Sunsari is also troubled by the same problem. As Verma was good in studies, his parents wanted him to become a doctor. They even sent him to India to complete his high school. After that, he was preparing for the medical entrance exam when he found out that he can’t apply for a scholarship without his citizenship certificate. “The two years I spent preparing for the exam went to waste. I wasn’t even eligible to fill the application form,” he says.

Krishna Mandal from Biratnagar-1 dropped out of school in the ninth grade to learn driving as he realized it would be difficult for him to get his citizenship certificate. Although he has been driving around for the past four years, he can’t apply for a license because he doesn’t have a citizenship certificate. “Our father got his citizenship based on birth and mother based on lineage,” he adds.

Thousands of youngsters such as Sah, Verma, and Mandal have been deprived of numerous opportunities as they can’t apply for citizenship. They can’t even go abroad for work.

According to prevailing laws, children of citizens who got their citizenship under special and time-bound campaigns in the past based on their birth in Nepal, can’t get citizenship. They have been lobbying with the government at all levels to make changes to the law.

Ajay Paudhar, president of the struggle committee for citizenship, says they have no option but to launch an agitation demanding citizenship.

Although the erstwhile Oli government passed an ordinance to allow children of those who got their citizenship based on their birth in Nepal to also get citizenship, it was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Citizenship Bill under consideration in the legislature has also been stuck as parties fail to reach a consensus on its provisions.

Bookmakers in the eastern Nepali metropolitan of Biratnagar have become active again with the start of the new season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) that kicked off on April 9.

Right from the first match between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and defending champions Mumbai Indians, Athar Ansari of Ghoghapul Chowk, Biratnagar—who is considered one of the biggest bookmakers in Biratnagar having been in the business for a decade—has mobilized his team of bookies across the country.

Born into an ordinary family, Ansari has now built a multi-million-dollar business in Biratnagar by betting on cricket matches and offering personal loans at high interests. Ansari, who previously went to India to watch the IPL live every year, is believed to be operating his business from Biratnagar this time. Last year too Ansari had operated from Biratnagar with the 2020 IPL held in the UAE due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ansari is believed to have invested his money acquired from illegal sports betting into offshore businesses. His team now comprises of youngsters who help him connect with new betters and to spread his loan-sharking nexus.

Absconding after police crackdown on bookies last year, Ansari has since been running an underground betting business and has even mobilized some cricketers in Biratnagar. According to a source, Ansari has expanded his betting business by including cricketers who could not make it to the Nepali national team.

To whiten his black money, Ansari has sent his two brothers and their families abroad in pretense of doing business. Lately, according to sources, he has been operating various businesses in Biratnagar. For instance, he has appointed one Majahid Ansari as the manager of New Baba Service Center and Showroom at Ghoghapul Chowk in Biratnagar from where he operates an illegal betting office. About half-a-dozen people are employed at the showroom whose main job is to raise money from betters.

Ansari has four business partners. He and his partners had absconded after the incident of their holding a young man hostage for two days for betting on an IPL match in Biratnagar became public last year. The young man had apparently failed to pay up the money he had lost in betting.

It was also revealed last year that one Ronaldo Kandel—also known as Ronaldo of Biratnagar-11—had signed a check for Rs 800,000 by holding hostage and mentally torturing Pintu ‘Bachha’ Agrawal, also known as Pintu of Biratnagar.

Meanwhile, Morang Police Chief SP Santosh Khadka says the police are vigilant about betting rackets in Biratnagar. Khadka informs that the police has increased surveillance on suspected people and will step in to control betting rackets.

Nepal’s Gambling Act 1963 defines gambling as ‘any game of chance which is played upon laying a wager for gaining or losing money.’ It mandates a maximum penalty of Rs 200 for first-time offenders, and one to three months imprisonment for repeat offenders.

The family of Gajendra Thakur of Biratnagar-17 in eastern Nepal has not left home in the past nine months. No, they are not under some kind of house-arrest. Nor do they have a deadly contagious disease. The reason for their forced confinement is that even though the Thakur family home falls firmly in Nepal, the road in front belongs to India. As the international Nepal-India border has been sealed since April 25 to control the spread of Covid-19, they cannot venture out.

Despite living in Nepal, the family has no option to using the Indian road to get around. Now, India has opened its side of the border while Nepal is yet to open its side.

The no-man’s land (Dasgaja) on the Nepal-India border lies to the west of Thakur family’s house. The no-man’s land is in turn connected to a road to India. Previously, the Thakur family used that same road to come to Nepal through the Jogbani customs checkpoint but now they are restricted from entering through the checkpoint even though their house is in Nepal.

The Thakur family has been living there for seven generations. Gajendra Thakur is the second son in the Thakur family which comprises of four brothers—Krishna Kumar, Gajendra, Rabindra and Ashok—who have built four separate houses on their ancestral property.

“My great-grandfather owned the property which at that time was a single plot of four acres. I even have a property tax receipt dating back to 1930 which has my great-grandfather Firan Thakur’s name on it,” Gajendra Thakur, 71, says. Firan Thakur’s descendants still occupy the land.

In 1947, a Rana family built the Raghupati Jute Mill by encroaching on some of Thakur family’s land and built a high wall. In 1976, the Biratnagar Customs Office forcibly seized another big chunk of land and built a wall as high as Raghupati Jute Mill’s in the northeast section.

Earlier, the road leading to Mills Area through Road Shesh Chowk in Biratnagar passed in front of Thakur’s house, on the way to Budhanagar. But then the Biratnagar customs raised a wall and blocked the road. The family fought for compensation and road access for years but in the end, only received a small compensation but no passage to commute.

Thakur’s family then had to depend on India to even go out of their home. Gajendra Thakur has property documents from decades ago. Showing a pile of papers that have accumulated over all these years fighting for their rights, Thakur says, “We used to shelter Nepali Congress leaders both before and after the revolution in the 1940s. My father Ram Shovit even let them hide their weapons in our granary,” Thakur recalls.

Out of the four acres of land the family owned in the past, only about 0.58 acres remain with it. The rest was occupied by Raghupati Jute Mill and Biratnagar customs. Of the four sides of the property, Nepal lies to the north, east and south and India to the west. Not only their home, but their farming land is connected with the Indian border.